Ukraine is producing more nuts than all the EU countries altogether

Ukraine is producing 110’000 tons of nuts that equals the total production of nuts by 28 member states of the European Union.

Such volumes of nut production allow Ukraine in full to satisfy the domestic need in the product and arrange sales in other countries. Apart from dynamic growth of the mentioned product, according to the results of 2016, the agro companies exported 27’000 tons of shelled nuts bringing $65 million of profit to the country.

Ukrainian nut export allows the country to be in line with the main export countries of the world in line but a couple of steps down. Ukraine, at the moment, is the third largest exporter of nuts; China is the leader with 50% of the total export of walnuts and the USA the second controlling 29%.

The key markets for Ukrainian nut are the Asian countries, nevertheless, EU increased imports of nuts from Ukraine though the requirement is for the product to be shelled which makes them more costly. As an example, the export to EU this year is 16% more than a year ago; in 2016 Ukraine exported 7’000 tons of nut to EU receiving $25 million of profit.

Making a brief analysis it can be stated that Ukraine is the third largest exporter of nuts in the world and the fourth to EU, only the US and Chile are ahead. There are a few reasons for this situation, first, the main producers are household growers and they do not sort or grad the nuts giving way to the US and Chile products, and second, experts are sure that only the industrial growth of nuts will allow to build up the export of the product using the best breeds, increasing the used area and incorporating the latest crop protection and treatment to make the products more exportable.